Dolly Lenz Real Estate / Evan Joseph
After nearly four years of aiming for a new owner, the penthouse triplex that the late Joan Rivers once called her own has returned for sale — and for a significant discount.
The 4,661-square-foot aerie at 1 E. 62nd St., now owned by a Saudi prince, hit the market on Wednesday for $28 million, according to a StreetEasy listing update. It’s also being represented by a new brokerage.
The palatial pad initially sought $38 million in 2021, but the listings portal shows a challenge of selling in the following years. By 2023, the asking price had lowered to $34.5 million — a price that remained until early 2024, when it was apparently pulled from the market.
Prince Muhammad bin Faud spent $28 million for the property in 2015, according to city Department of Finance records. Rivers, the legendary caustic comedian, died in 2014 from brain damage sustained due to a lack of oxygen during a medical procedure. She was 81.
Rivers resided there for 28 years — and during her ownership entertained A-list guests, including the late Princess Diana.
It’s all perched atop a 42-foot-wide limestone mansion that architect Horace Trumbauer designed in a neo-French Classical style. Rivers bought it in 1988 — a year following the death of her husband Edgar Rosenberg.
Rivers famously served as president of the building’s condominium board — and, even more famously, encountered a ghost in the home. In a 2009 episode of “Celebrity Ghost Stories,” Rivers said she had to bring in a voodoo priestess after moving in to help remove a difficult apparition she referred to as “Mrs. Spencer,” who she said was a onetime resident. That Mrs. Spencer was said to be a niece of the financier and banker J.P. Morgan.
Rivers added that neighbors had even seen spirits dancing inside and even descending her grand staircase in evening attire.
Described as “breathtaking” in its listing, the residence — as it stands — seems to be in a state unlike that of Rivers’ time inside, which was marked by antique furnishings and ornate Versailles-style decor. Gilded ceiling medallions and wall moldings remain in the unit’s grand ballroom, but the interior stands largely empty, the marketing images show.
The listing, from Zina Raslan and Carl Gambino of Compass, details the ballroom’s 23-foot ceilings, elegant parquet-de-Versailles flooring and a statement woodburning fireplace.
The brokerage declined to comment.
The residence also has a corner-paneled library and a formal dining room dressed with 18th-century French panels — a room that glows in a rose hue. (In a 2012 interview, Rivers described the residence’s lavish decor as “Louis XIV meets Fred and Ginger.”)
The corner primary suite has a terrace and views of Central Park located very close by. It’s being marketed as a five-bedroom, 5.5-bathroom home.